Climate Change Conversations & Collaborations

In today’s world, collaboration is more critical than ever. At Civity, we recognize the value of partnering with organizations that are actively engaging people in important conversations. A relational civity foundation provides a huge boost to their work. This past year, one of our focus areas was conversations about climate change. Many organizations in various …

Civity and Housing Policy: Creating the Space for a Different Kind of Conversation

The housing crisis in California is characterized by skyrocketing prices, a severe shortage of housing affordable for many households, and many people finding themselves homeless. Yet despite widespread recognition of the need for more housing, projects and policies that would facilitate building additional housing are often opposed by residents who are already comfortably housed. Meta, …

A Quilt Meditation on Democracy, Social Connection, & Civity

Fall has arrived here in Milwaukee, and the quilts have come out of the closet. My mother took up quilting later in life, and I have several of her quilts. One that is made of scraps from many different other projects is especially dear to me. I can identify dresses she wore and shirts she …

A Path Out of Polarization: The Strengthening Democracy Challenge and the Civity Storytelling Intervention

This article originally appeared on the listserv Beyond Intractability on June 12, 2023. Political polarization seems to be everywhere – in Washington DC, at statehouses around the nation, and in school board and other local government meetings.  It has come to appear so entrenched as to be a permanent part of the national landscape, inevitable …

Civity & the “Tough Issues”

Our joint civity journey – close to 20 years now – started with a one-on-one conversation … with each other. We talked about our concerns about important “tough issues” such as the environment, health care, education, racism, and poverty. We talked about our combined experience in local communities where we saw the effects of these …

Civity Collaborates with Climate Change Practitioners

Over the last few months Civity has had the privilege of facilitating two civity workshops with climate-change-related practitioners. Working with the members of the Midwest Climate Collaborative in St. Louis, Missouri, and with Bluegrass Greensource in Lexington, Kentucky, the common thread was the awareness that building relationships across difference is the foundation for change. Much of …

Website by HelloAri.